


Vigilante

by Bitenomnom



Series: For the Following [Length of Time] [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, BAMF!John, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Gen, Sherlock mad lib
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:57:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/pseuds/Bitenomnom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John went to Regent’s Park, he wasn’t expecting to find Sherlock. He was expecting even less for the following four hours to be so fibrous. If only Sherlock hadn’t pushed the notebook—but he did. <i>Jesus Christ.</i></p><p>AU in which Sherlock meets John in investigating the case of the murder of one cabbie. Written for writinginmargins based on the (above) fill of a mad lib I wrote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigilante

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahaha, I still haven't forgotten about these, I promise! Just taking my sweet time. In all seriousness, the past month or so contained a lot more classwork and work stuff than I thought it would, so I hardly got to work on any fanfic. But the semester is over, so I should have some more time now! 
> 
> I do feel a little bit rusty -- but I hope it's okay. I feel like it could be about 90 times longer but I have so many other things to write, so. XD (And apologies for the super unoriginal title.) And I hope you like it, [writinginmargins](http://writinginmargins.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> *crosses fingers and hopes there aren't 23094823048 plotholes*

             _I doubt it. –SH_

_Don’t. All the records match up. He’s our man._

_I’ve been watching him for three hours. Ex-military, strong sense of morality and solid ability to judge situations. Not the sort to commit murder for overcharged fare. –SH_

_Does explain why he’s such a good shot, though, doesn’t it?_

_It was close range. Anyone could be a good shot from that distance. –SH_

_Look, whatever you have to do to prove it to yourself, go ahead._

_Really? –SH_

_Within reason, Sherlock. But if he’s not the murderer I’ll give you first crack at every scene you want for a month._

_Including before your moronic forensics team. –SH_

_They’re not moronic, but yes, even that._

_I think that sort of practice could get you fired. –SH_

_It won’t do, though, because I’m right. He’s the one who did it._

_We’ll see about that. –SH_

Because, of course, this man was too sharp and too good to kill in cold blood, over the difference of a fiver, and Sherlock knew it.

            _I’ll prove his innocence by the end of the day. –SH_

John rubbed his knuckles over his leg as he rested on the park bench in Regent’s, trying not to think about whether he would ever again be able to walk without the bloody cane. It had been months, after all, and the injury wasn’t real, and _hell_ did he miss not hurting, and _fuck_ did he wish he could feel like he could run, could escape, if he had to.

            Of course, he probably could do, if he really had to. He had the night before last. He’d had a handful of glorious moments where he’d abandoned that stupid cane, that stupid limp, and dashed like he hadn’t done since Afghanistan, and only once he got back home realized he’d left the cane in the back of the cab.

            He bought a new one the next day. It was, at least, a bit less reminiscent of something a man of eighty would use; it was clean and cold and medical, just like the best that John could hope for, for the rest of his life, now. Medicine was all he had left and it wouldn’t be dirty and messy and urgent and hot and bloody, full of grit and gritted teeth and blaring wind and sirens. Just a nice, clean hospital, and every tool available and precise and sterilized, every table wiped down, every floor clean enough to eat from. It was all he had left, and it was the passion drained from him leaving only the dregs of technical utility. Nobody needed John, per se, anymore; they needed a doctor. Who it was didn’t matter. It wasn’t like just half a year ago when he’d laid down his gun to patch up Willson and Willson shot over his shoulder and they got back to base somehow in one piece and leaned up back-to-back cleaning their weapons. No longer would anyone say, “Thank fuck for you, Watson;” no longer could he return the sentiment with a grinning little, “Not my fault you’re a suicidal git.” He wasn’t Watson anymore, wasn’t that last little pinch of luck and life that stitched people up out of their deathbeds and then cracked a shot across the sand that only just barely saved all their arses, but save their arses it did.

            He was just a doctor, and hobbling along on a cane.

            “Excuse me,” John heard someone say in the distance to a woman he’d been watching out of the corner of his eye, taking notes or perhaps composing poetry or music as she looked out over the boating lake.

            He tried not to look surprised at the person who’d asked—he recognized the man from the papers, from some little snippet with a tiny photo off to the side that he’d happened across a week ago. One Sherlock Holmes, apparently unnaturally good at solving crimes, if the quote from one of Scotland Yard’s detective inspectors held any weight—which, he thought, it ought to.

            John shifted and rubbed at his leg again.

            Of course, if he’d known Sherlock Holmes was going to be here, maybe he wouldn’t have stopped just at this bench. He could’ve walked a little farther.

            _Oh, come off it,_ he told himself. There was, of course, no way for this man to simply _sense_ John’s en tire past, to somehow divine what he’d done Tuesday evening. He was probably here on pure coincidence; to talk to this woman, maybe.

            “Yeah?” she said, not looking away from her notes.

            “May I borrow your notebook? Only for a second, I simply need a flat surface to write on.” He held up a blank sheet of paper. “Some directions for a friend,” he specified, and nodded in John’s general direction. John tried to pretend he hadn’t heard, pretended to check the time on his mobile as he continued to watch them from the corner of his eye.

            “Oh,” she said, flipping it shut and turning the heavy cardboard back to the top as she handed it to Holmes. “Sure.”

            “Ta,” said Holmes, and then shoved it out of her hand so that it plummeted into the lake.

            Before he could think, before he could even hear the shriek of the woman about losing her entire semester’s work, before he could spare another single glance at Sherlock Holmes, John dove in. Loose sheets drifted around the water and the thing began to saturate from back to front, so John grabbed for it, for its soggy pages in some vain hope that at least the first few could be saved. Bits of paper that had been inserted in amongst the notes and the floating loose sheets clung to John’s jacket like static electricity drew them there. Pages from the notebook wrapped around his hands and refused to let go, and by the time he elevated the notebook so the woman could lean over the railing to grab it, there was hardly anything left of it; it was all in the lake, slowly unsticking from the surface to drift to the bottom, or else adhered to John, to his arms and his jumper and, as he climbed out, to his legs and feet.

            “I knew it,” said Sherlock, ignoring the angry shouts of the woman whose notebook had just been destroyed.

            John froze.

            “Sorry?” he finally asked.

            “I knew you’d jump in to get it. You’re a good man.”

            “And you’re an awful one,” was the first thing John could think of to say, when he loosened up at the words. “You have no idea what kind of important notes she had in that notebook!”

            “Generic social science course,” Holmes said. “Dull.”

            John turned to the woman, and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry he did that to you.” He glanced down woefully at all the bits of paper that had stuck to him, that seemed to be working on integrating with his clothing as the soggy fibers of the papers soaked into the fabric of his clothes. “I’m not sure if these will even come off of me all in one piece.”

            “I won’t be able to read them anyway,” she said, pulling away from John’s hand, and then huffing and grabbing her bag before striding away.

            “Right,” John said, turning to Holmes. “What the _hell_ was that?”

            “An experiment.”

            “About what, exactly?”

            “You.”

            John frowned. “I’m flattered, really. Please kindly bugger off and never throw someone else’s things into a lake to see if I jump in, ever again.”

            “Aren’t you going to ask why I did?”

            “No. I’m just going to leave, and you’re not going to follow me.”

            “Is this of particular concern to you? My following you?”

            “Yes,” John finally said, “it is.”

            “Why?”

            “You know, I don’t think all that many people fancy being stalked, and I’m not sure what to think of the sort of bloke who has to wonder why.”

            “You’re going to have a difficult time removing all those paper fibers from your clothing, you know.”

            “I’m aware. That’s why I’m going to go home and get to work on it right now, without you following me.”

            “Oh, _please_ ,” Holmes rolled his eyes. “You don’t even _own_ another jacket. You know it will be next to impossible to clean this one up without some professional assistance, which you can’t afford on an army pension. Probably why you only own one jacket, too.”

            “I—”

            “I, on the other hand, was just getting ready to take my other suits to the dry-cleaners, and would be more than happy to include your jacket with my order to make up for your…distress. It will only be a few hours. Anyway, you must want to dry off, and my flat is much closer than yours.”

            “How do you know where I live?”

            This seemed to throw Holmes for a moment before he finally answered, “Well, I am only a mile and a half away from here, and, given your income, it’s statistically extremely unlikely you could afford to live any closer to Regent’s Park than I.”

            “And you know about my income because…”

            “Posture, haircut, tan lines at sleeve length: army. You’re a soldier. But a limp and a cane: you were discharged. You’d be on an army pension. I’ve got an idea of about what that will get you.” He paused. “The limp is psychosomatic, by the way.”

            “I’m aware,” John bristled. How did Holmes get off on knowing so much about him? Surely they didn’t know—no, it was probably just his usual crime-solving techniques at work in a non-crime situation, he told himself. And Holmes recognized him as a soldier before a doctor; that had to be worth something. No one else but his army mates did that.

            “Right. Well. Thanks for the offer—I mean, not really, it’s your own sodding fault—but I think I’ll just deal with being a little soaked, and go my own way. Anyway, I have got more than one jacket.”

            “But this is your favorite.”

            “Can you please stop pretending to know things about me?”

            “I don’t know; I notice.”

            “Lovely. All right. I know who you are, all right? That detective bloke who helps the police out sometimes. I saw a bit in the papers.”

            One of the man’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”

            “What, that I can read?”

            He waved a hand. “No, nothing like that. Go on.”

            “Right. Well, I’m not sure why you think you have to provoke _me_ or follow _me_ —”

            “I never said anything about following you,” Holmes said. “You did. I merely failed to correct you.”

            “Oh. Well. Good.”

            “But I will follow you, now that you’ve suggested it. Unless, of course, you feel like coming over to my flat for some tea while I get your jacket cleaned for you. Your other clothes, too, if you like, although I’m afraid I haven’t got anything but a dressing gown that you could wear in the meantime.”

            “Why are you following me?”

            “Because, John Watson,” Holmes said, “Scotland Yard suspects you of murder, and I need to prove them wrong.”

 

 

 

            “Look,” said John as he hobbled his way up the stairs, “I’m chuffed that you want to prove my innocence and all that…” They were the first words he’d spoken since they’d climbed into a cab after Holmes’ insistence that they not give the paper fibers more time to integrate with John’s still-sopping clothes than strictly necessary. John tried not to notice the extra god-knew-how-many-quid that Holmes handed the cab driver as they got out, presumably for his slightly dampened seats; tried not to notice the way Holmes watched John carefully as they disembarked, tried not to feel like he was being led straight from freedom to a jail cell. Holmes had certainly given John no explanation for why he disagreed with the Yard on the point of John’s guilt; but John was not inclined to correct him. If Holmes really believed John innocent, maybe he had enough sway to prevent him from being convicted. On the other hand, John thought, how likely was it that he could evade the infamous detective over a prolonged stay at his flat while his clothes were dry-cleaned? His chances were slim.

            But he hadn’t exactly had much of a choice, had he? Turning down an offer like Holmes’ would only immediately show his guilt, would only seal his fate. “But, Mr. Holmes…”

            “Sherlock. Please.”

            “Sherlock,” John corrected himself, struggling to catch up with the man who’d taken the stairs in about half a second with his long and stretching legs. Maybe he oughtn’t say anything; it wasn’t too late. He could ask for tea; he could continue arguing that dry-cleaning his jacket was unnecessary. But it would come out sooner or later: better now than after his clothes were long gone being washed. “But what makes you—you know, I mean, why do you—”

            “Why do I disagree with the Yard?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow as he stepped into flat B and held the door open for John to follow. “They’re idiots.”

            “Uh…”

            “Absolutely every piece of evidence I’ve gathered so far strongly indicates that you are not the sort of man who would kill a cabbie over a couple quid.”

            “Over a—that’s what they think—” John sputtered. Sherlock waited, still, as if suspended in oil, for John to continue, but John caught himself—he hoped—before he said too much. “Look, I don’t know what I’m being accused of—I mean, beyond the obvious—or why _I’m_ being accused of it, but who the _hell_ would kill a cabbie for overcharging by a bit?”

            “Not you, to be sure,” Sherlock said slowly. “Unless you have another theory.”

            “I don’t know anything about this, all right?”

            “Of course, Dr. Watson.” _Doctor_ , John thought, _since when did he know I’m a—_ Adrenaline boiled up in him alongside foreign and unwelcome _anger_ that his position in Sherlock’s eyes had shifted from soldier to doctor, as if it mattered one way or the other.Sherlock waved a hand toward an empty seat. “Feel free to rest your leg.”

            “ _Damn_ my leg!” John shouted, leaning heavy against his cane. He took in a deep and shaky breath and let it out calmer and stiller. “Sorry. Just—”

            “You don’t like being reminded of it. Of course. Makes it worse.” Sherlock paced around and collapsed into another chair. “Take a seat all the same.”

            “What happened to the dry-cleaning? I’m going to get your chair soggy.”

            “My problem, not yours,” Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. “We’ll take care of the dry-cleaning soon enough. I’ve just texted someone to come get our things on the ride over.”

            “What, too famous to take them yourself?” John asked, following Sherlock’s lead and settling into the chair toward which the man had motioned him.

            “No,” Sherlock said, and from the way his eyes widened, it came out a good deal stronger than he meant it to, “I’m simply a bit occupied at present. Trying to prove your innocence, and all that. Unless you’re no longer interested, Dr. Watson.”

            “John. Please. Or Watson, if you have to be formal about it. And of course I am.”

            The corner of Sherlock’s mouth curled up. “Very well, John.” He settled a piercing stare on John, who felt something like a slide beneath a microscope. “Tell me what you know about the murder.”

            John shifted and pulled a union jack pillow out from behind him, moving it to his side. “Nothing,” he said.

            “You’re lying.”

            “All right, well, I know that whoever did it was apparently mad and cared about being overcharged a few pounds.”

            “You don’t know that. You know that that’s what seems to be the motive. And you know that because it’s what I told you.”

            John shrugged. “You asked what I knew.”

            “All right,” Sherlock sighed, “if you must be dull about it.” He reached around to the side of his chair and pulled something up.

            John’s cane.

            “This was found on the floor of the cab, which was parked a street away from where one Jeff Hope, taxi driver, was found shot dead at close range.”

            “I see.”

            “It’s yours.”

            “And you think that because…”

            “Fingerprints. Obviously.”

            “Of course.” John sighed. “Yeah, it’s mine. Wondered where I’d left it.”

            “The question is, when did you take a cab, and why didn’t anyone, including yourself, seem to notice or do anything about an abandoned cane between then and when the murder happened? Further, why would you have abandoned it in the first place? The Yard says it was you in your hurry to escape the scene of the crime, but the crime occurred far enough from the cab. You’d have had to abandon it long before fleeing, if you, for instance, led him to that empty café by gunpoint. That seems like a great deal of planning for an impulsive murder like this. Or, maybe you chased him out of his own cab. Still, difficult to imagine you chasing anyone.” John winced at this. “He could have outrun you easily, perhaps ducked down the next street to evade the gunshots; no reason for him to have wound up in the back of that restaurant if you were chasing. Unless he was a complete idiot.”

            “But he wasn’t.”

            “Talk to him, did you?”

            John shrugged. “You can tell by that gleam in peoples’ eyes, you know? Whether they’re completely dull or whether they’ve got that sort of spark of intelligence. He seemed the latter.”

            “You remember him, then.”

            “Sure.”

            “Don’t take cabs often.”

            “No.”

            “No, not on your budget, I’d expect. Why this time?”

            “Rubbish weather. Long walk from my therapist’s to the nearest Tube stop and another long walk to my flat after that—in the rain, anyway.”

            “The rain _was_ rather persistent that day, wasn’t it?”

            “It’s London,” John shrugged. Sherlock seemed to smile at this.

“And where were you when it happened?”

            “I dunno, when did it happen?” John raised an eyebrow.

            “Around eleven p.m.”

            “I expect I was out getting a late dinner from around the corner then.”

            “Have you got a receipt?”

            John shook his head.

            “Well,” Sherlock started, standing and beginning to pace, “I suppose if it came down to a matter of Scotland Yard absolutely refusing to believe me, I could phone Mycroft and get the CCTV footage near your flat and the shop, if there is any, to show you were there. Still, would be better if I can simply prove it without Mycroft’s meddling…doubtless he will view the trouble as impractical, or a threat to the security of the government, or side with the Yard on your guilt simply because to show otherwise is inconvenient and expensive and requires legwork.”

            “Sounds like a lovely bloke,” John said, hoping that his swallowing down of panic was not too visible; there may not have been surveillance of any notable variety where he’d shot the cabbie, but there was certainly no way of showing that he’d been at his flat anywhere around that time. He’d been halfway across London, fleeing the scene of his crime on quick and sure feet that carried him far enough away that he never got caught—until now, anyway, it seemed, if he wasn’t very careful.

            “Let’s not talk about him,” Sherlock said.

            “Sounds fine to me.”

            “Let’s talk about your dry-cleaning.” He paced toward John. “I’ll take your jacket. There should be somebody here to pick my things up soon.”

            John sighed and stood to take his jacket off, but as he made to hand it to Sherlock, Sherlock flitted off to the other side of the room to look out the window. “Hm,” said Sherlock, peering through the curtains, “Looks like a mugging.”

            “What—” John gawked for half a second before hurtling down the stairs, listening for any shrieks, if the victim was so mentally present as to think to scream for help when under attack. He rattled down to the bottom of the stairs and quite nearly ran into an older woman who was handing what must have been Sherlock’s suits to a gentleman at the door.

            “Ah,” he said, glancing over John and his doubtless ridiculous appearance, half plastered over with papers. “And you’d be the fellow with the jacket. Sherlock mentioned it would be included with his things this time.” He held an arm out for John’s jacket, and John, incredulous, handed it over.

            “Sorry, is—was there just—did either of you see or hear a theft or assault going on out there?”

            “Street’s more or less empty, mate,” said the dry-cleaner, or errand-man, or whatever he was supposed to be, placing John’s jacket on a hanger. “Presuming parked cars don’t typically rob each other.”

            “Right,” John peered past him outside; there was no one, and no signs of struggle. “Okay. Er, ta. Will these be back soon?”

            “Three hours, give or take. Sherlock doesn’t much fancy waiting.”

            John nodded mutely.

            “One of Sherlock’s clients, then?” the older woman asked as the man took Sherlock’s suits and John’s jacket out the door. “I’m his landlady. I hope he’s offered you tea, dearie. Oh, but he’s probably forgotten. You just remind him and tell him I said he’d better. You look a touch distressed.” She paused and brought one hand to her face. “Oh, was it a date? And you haven’t seen the state of his place before, and it’s brought on a bit of a shock, I see. Go easy on him, dear, he hasn’t any…”

            “Not a date,” John managed. “Client.” It was close enough, anyway.

            “Well you tell him to make that tea.”

            “Right,” said John, and he made his way back up the stairs.

            When he re-entered the room, Sherlock was sitting in his chair again, fingertips pressed together just under his chin as he examined his outstretched feet and the object he balanced upon them.

            It was John’s new cane.

            “You left this,” he said. John felt the pit of his stomach drop. “Curious.” Sherlock launched the cane into the air with a bounce of his feet and then caught it before springing out of his chair, twirling it in his hand. “Of course you did so when you jumped into the lake; nobody is so attached to his cane that he would try to swim with it. However, at the slightest whiff of someone in need of assistance—or so I would assume—you immediately forgot about it and ran down the stairs rather successfully without it. By the look at your face when you came back in, you didn’t realize you’d forgotten it until you saw me looking at it.”

            “Well, there you go,” John said. “I left it in the cab when I thought I saw someone being harassed.”

            “That would have been much more believable if you’d said so earlier,” Sherlock noted. He narrowed his eyes. “This does continue to get more interesting by the minute.”

            “So you changed your mind, or what? Now you think I did it? Just because I ran off without my cane for half a minute to try to help someone I thought was being mugged?”

            “Hardly,” Sherlock waved one hand, giving John his cane back and then sitting back down. John did the same. “In fact, given that your limp is psychosomatic, as well as the fact that you are rather dedicated to defending the helpless and a touch of an adrenaline junkie on top of it, I’d say that behavior makes perfect sense.”

            “Good.”

            “What’s interesting is that your therapist would disagree.” Sherlock steepled his fingers again. “She thinks you should be relieved to be back, living a calm, uneventful life. You should be relaxed. Docile. But you aren’t. I saw your restless movements in the park and on the ride over here. When you took off down the stairs, you were the calmest and most in-control I have seen you in my limited time of observation.” He huffed a heavy breath from his nostrils. “You didn’t only jump into the lake to help the woman recover her notebook; you saw the crack of an open window to excitement and you all but threw yourself into that lake. Same for the mugging. You did leave your cane in the cab under similar circumstances…” Sherlock leaned forward. “But not earlier in the day. You were the cabbie’s last fare before he died. He had all but four pounds of your charge in his wallet.”

            “Could have been somebody else’s.”

            “But it was yours,” Sherlock pressed. “And for some reason, which given my latest observations must correspond to some sort of exciting moral crisis, you, in your eagerness, left your cane in the car, coerced him into the restaurant, and killed him.”

            “That’s not at all how it happened,” John snapped.

            “So you _did_ kill him,” Sherlock breathed, first annoyance and then wonder passing over his features. He typed out a text madly, but then seemed to think better of it as he rapidly tapped the delete key.

            “I never said that!”

            “No, but if you hadn’t, your protest would’ve been that you hadn’t killed him, not that that wasn’t how it happened.” He scooted forward even further, fingers perched pressed together against his chin, index fingers absently stroking at his lower lip. “Tell me _exactly_ what happened. Spare no detail. I _need_ to know.”

            “To prove my innocence?”

            “I think we’re far beyond that,” Sherlock breathed. “Now, tell me.”

            John took in a deep breath and blew it out. Maybe they would at least go easy on him, if he was up-front about it. “It actually did start when I took a cab home from a visit to my therapist—last month.”

            He waited for Sherlock to interject, but he was silent, icy pinpoints of eyes pinning John to the spot.

            “There’d still been bits on the news about the second of those, what are they calling them, serial suicides.”

            “A third one happened just last week.”

            “I know.” He cast his eyes down. “Anyway, cabbie had the radio on and they were jabbering on about it, you know, how odd that there had been two with so many odd features in common and all that, even with the victims so different. Of course you could tell they were dying to speculate on whether they were actually murders, since who’s heard of serial suicides?”

            “Exactly.” John wondered if Sherlock could scoot any farther forward without falling off his chair, but he managed to do so.

            “Seemed a bit odd to me, some of the bits about the suicides, so I was making my own theories about whether it was really murder. I was fresh back from Afghanistan—I thought, god, glad I’ve just come home to what might turn up to be a serial killer. Can’t trust anyone these days.”

            “Or ever, really,” Sherlock added sharply.

            John inclined his head. “Of course, thoughts like that, about—you know—trusting people—they can get kind of poisonous, especially to a bloke who’s just come home from someplace where you’ve absolutely got to trust that the fellow behind you isn’t gonna shoot you in the back; and, the same way, that the locals you’re trying to work with aren’t reporting back to somebody else. You start feeling…vulnerable.”

            Sherlock nodded. “Go on.”

            “I’d thought, at the time, good god, even this cab driver could pull me off to the middle of nowhere and try to beat the tar out of me, maybe pull a weapon on me.”

            “Not knowing, of course, that you had a gun yourself.”

            “Gun’s pointless if you can’t see the tire iron coming.”

            “Ah,” said Sherlock. “True.” John watched as he appeared to bite at his inner lip. “ _…Ah_ ,” he said, his face lighting up. “You realized that that could have been exactly what was happening, that the two victims were led far away from places where they ought to be—which could only happen by some sort of vehicle, probably individual transport—and made to swallow some sort of poison, perhaps by gunpoint. They wouldn’t think twice about whether a cab driver was trustworthy.”

            “Exactly.”

            “Brilliant,” Sherlock’s fingers danced, ends tapping together. “Perfect. But was there any connection between the victims, after all?” He seemed to be running through a list in his head, double-checking all the facts he’d gathered.

            “No,” John said.

            “Oh?” His gaze swung back to John. “Go on.”

            “Of course, once I figured it out, I started taking taxis more. A lot more.” He sighed. “You’re right; that was my only jacket. Meant to replace it, but—kept spending all my spare money on fare. Can’t remember the last time I’ve had a proper meal.”

            “You hoped you would find proof for your theory—that one of the cab drivers would pull a gun on you.”

            “Yeah.”

            Sherlock chewed at his lip again with narrowed eyes. “But you wouldn’t do that simply to confirm a theory, being—ah. The sooner you were his fare, the sooner you could be sure there wasn’t a third victim.”

            “It obviously didn’t work out,” John sighed.

            “But at least there won’t be a fourth—I assume.”

            “It was definitely him,” John said. “So no, there won’t be.”

            “What happened, then? When you climbed into his taxi?”

            “We started going the wrong way,” John said, “and that was when I first started figuring it out. He pulled over on some little street and then he pulled out his gun.”

            “But you didn’t shoot him there.”

            “No.” John shifted in his seat, glancing now toward the ceiling. “He said—he said, ‘ _You’re a bit bored, aren’t you?_ ’I asked how it was his business and he told me he was bored, too. He was tired of regular people, he said, and then he said that he was sure I wasn’t a regular person. Said it was clear as day I was gasping for it—adrenaline. He flashed the gun at me so he was sure I knew he had it, and he said that he had a game for us that would help us both with the boredom.”

            “The victims weren’t physically coerced into taking the pills,” Sherlock noted, and paused with slightly parted lips. “But if they knew they would die, why not take the gunshot? It would be a thousand times quicker, and there would be a good chance that the shot would be heard, thereby at least theoretically reducing the number of future victims if the police could begin searching the area.”

            “Well, except that it was a fake gun. But I’m sure the other two couldn’t have known that.”

            “True,” Sherlock smirked. “But _you_ did.” His fingers rapped against each other. “But he had nothing on him besides his wallet, and he obviously didn’t intend to play Russian roulette. What was his game? Did he plan to talk you to death?”

            John reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out two tiny stopped bottles, each containing three oblong pills. “One’s lethal,” he said quietly, “one’s not.”

            “ _Oh_ ,” Sherlock gasped, and reached forward to snatch the bottles from John, but John pulled them both back. Sherlock shot him a glare before letting his hand retreat slowly. “Elegant. Lovely. I wonder if it truly was up to chance? He’d won twice, of course, assuming that the game was that whichever you took, he took the other.” John nodded. “That could just be chance, but why would he leave it there? Perhaps they are both poisoned and he’s immune to the poison. Give them here, let me test them.”

            “Not now,” John said. “Let me finish.”

            “Of course,” Sherlock stilled, and watched with disappointment as John stuffed the bottles back into his pocket.

            “I saw a picture of his kids in the cab,” John said, “so I asked him why he’d risk leaving them behind. Said I know plenty of families who lost a father and none of those kids is happy to hear it, and his won’t be any different, except that maybe they’ll change their mind knowing dad’s a serial killer.

            “He said it would ‘still help them’ before he knew better than to shut up, and I worked it out of him that somebody’s giving him money to do this. Well, not him—his kids. Some twisted, _twisted_ arse with lots of money, just paying a cab driver to kill his passengers to help send his children to university. And he said it’s how they’re _going_ to university—present tense—so it was an old photo and he just hadn’t seen them since it was taken, I gather. Just a bloke who separated from his wife and loved his kids.”

            “And he was willing to risk dying for that?”

            “He was gonna anyway, soon. Symptoms of an intense headache, kept rubbing at his neck and eyes, like his vision was bothering him, and I got a glimpse beneath his cap when the breeze from the café door opening blew it off: he had an aneurysm.”

            “ _Fantastic_ ,” said Sherlock. “Any idea who was funding him?”

            “None,” said John.

            “And what did you do, in the end?”

            “I distracted him by grabbing both bottles and stuffing them away in my pocket. When he pulled out his fake gun, I drew my own real one, and—well. I suppose you saw.”

            “I did.” Sherlock had his mobile out, and his fingers flew along the keys.

John felt his innards freeze. That was it, then. “So there you go. Not as innocent as you thought,” he muttered.

            Sherlock lowered the phone slowly. “No,” he said, his voice careful and measured, “not at all like I thought.”

            “I suppose you’re telling the Yard that they can stop by and arrest me. On the positive side, I guess my cell can’t possibly be much smaller than where I was already living. I’m sure my neighbors will be exciting.”

            “Mm,” Sherlock said thoughtfully. “No, I think it was far too rainy midday on Tuesday for you to walked to the Tube from your therapist. I’m sure it was such a fulfilling meeting that you’d actually made great strides toward your leg’s recovery, and merely forgotten your cane as a result. Anyway, doubtless whoever it was who shot him used Hope’s own gun against him, and was clever enough to leave a fake one at the scene, taking the real one perhaps to sell on the black market or else perhaps out of fear that the police would find his prints on it.”

            “Ah,” said John, speechless. “Uh…why…are you…”

            “Because you’ll be rubbish at splitting the rent if you’re in jail,” Sherlock said. “And even worse at assisting me on my next case. That is, assuming you’d rather be my flatmate than locked up someplace.”

            “And you think that’ll work?” He didn’t dare ask the more pressing questions, _why_ and _why me_ and _what are you thinking_ and a thousand others.

            “You think DI Lestrade will think I’m insane enough to knowingly let a murderer live with me?”

            “Maybe,” John said. “You do seem a little…” he glanced around the flat, and his eyes lingered on the skull on the mantelpiece. “…Eccentric.”

            Sherlock shrugged and reached for something leaning against a bookcase. He pulled up a violin to his chin and began uncoiling a string of notes. “Oh,” he finally said, “and feel free to borrow my dressing gown if you want to get out of those damp and papery clothes.” He nodded toward a gown thrown over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

            “Right,” said John, quietly, to himself, and he picked up the robe and wandered into the bathroom to change out of all but his pants and put on the too-long dressing gown. “Right.”

 


End file.
